Time Bomb(61)

For a moment, Rashid couldn’t speak as he pictured the dark-haired girl with the olive skin and sad eyes pointing a gun at her head.

He could barely breathe as Cas tilted the bag and said, “The gun is gone.”





Frankie





— Chapter 43 —


“LEFT OR RIGHT?” Frankie asked as he stepped over a broken two-by-four, coughed, and peered down the hallway. The left looked like the clearest path, but between his eyes adjusting from the classroom lit by sunlight and the dim, smoke-filled hall, it was hard to tell for certain.

Z looked in both directions and pointed to the right. “I’ll shout if I find anything.” Before Frankie could nod, Z leaped over a bunch of debris and bolted down the hallway. The guy was on a mission. So was Frankie. He needed to get out of here. Away from the fire and explosions and Tad.

Experimenting with Tad had been a mistake. He wasn’t like Tad, Rashid, Cas, or Z. He wasn’t looking for who he was supposed to be or trying to find people to accept him. Did he feel sorry for the others? Hell, yeah, but that didn’t mean he had to make their choices. People liked him. He was a winner the way he was. Yeah, he needed to push boundaries every once in a while, but there were some boundaries he knew he couldn’t cross without changing everything.

Something clanged behind him.

Heart jumping, he spun and squinted into the haze.

“Z?” he called.

Nothing. No Z. No crazy bomber dude or firefighter coming to save the day.

God, this all really sucked.

“Z?” he called again.

Still no answer.

Frankie turned and spotted a body covered in dust and debris next to a classroom door. The guy wasn’t moving. Still, Frankie leaned down, felt for a pulse, and recognized the teacher staring lifelessly up at him.

Mr. Rizzo.

Frankie coughed. Bile burned up his throat. The taste of bitter metal and saliva flooded his mouth. Nope. He wasn’t going to throw up. Although he could see he wouldn’t be the first one to do so.

Kaitlin was near death. He was worried about dying himself. But the whole idea of dying still seemed unreal. Kind of like when Cas talked about killing herself. That seemed like something out of a story, not something that was really going to happen. Not like now. This was very real.

Shake it off, he could hear his father say. That’s what a winner did. That’s what anyone committed to a true purpose did. Shake it off and focus on doing what needed to be done. No doubts. Doubts only lead to hesitation, and hesitation to failure.

And failure here meant ending up like Mr. Rizzo or whoever else was buried under the rubble of the staircase that Frankie was heading toward. Because he couldn’t go back to the room and wait there for whoever might come to save them. He couldn’t because that’s not who he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be the guy everyone admired, even though no one could ever be all they expected him to be.

Frankie ducked under a bunch of wires to look at the mess that used to be the stairs. Through the haze of smoke and the dim light, he studied the wreckage. The stairs and the ceiling and roof had caved in, making the prospects of getting down this way slim. But when he looked down the hall that led to the back of the school, it looked even worse. Slim was better than nothing. Especially since Z wasn’t calling out to say he’d found a better way.

Glad to be doing anything other than sitting around in that room, Frankie grabbed a board, yanked it out of the wreckage, and threw it behind him. He yanked another out, then another, and held his breath as debris moved and then settled. He was reaching for another board when he heard voices. Not behind him, where Diana and Tad and the others were waiting, but somewhere . . . below. The voices were coming from below.

“Hello?” he called. “Is anyone there?”

Nothing. Then he heard the mumble of something . . . someone yelling. It had to be the firefighters working to come get them.

Yes. “Hey! We’re up here.”

Frankie heard something snap. He spun on his heel and almost barreled into Tad, who stumbled back, tripped over an iron bar, and slammed into an open locker with a crash.

“Sorry,” Frankie said as Tad pushed himself upright. “I think there are rescue workers trying to come up through the stairs from below. I need to find Z and tell him.”

“Wait.” Tad grabbed his arm. “Have you seen Diana?”

“She’s in the room with you.”

“No.” Tad shook his head. “One minute she was there, and the next, we all realized she’d disappeared. I was hoping she’d coming looking to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

“They have a suspect in custody, and he said there’s a second bomber and it’s one of us.”

Frankie turned back. “One of who?”

“Us,” Tad said, pointing in the direction of the hallway they’d both come from. “With Z leaving and you going after him and with the cops thinking there’s another bomb, we thought—”

“Wait a minute. You don’t think I’m the bomber, do you?” Tad’s hesitation kicked the air out of his chest. “Are you serious?” Frankie barely choked out. “Tad, you know me.”

“I thought I knew you. I was wrong.”

“And because I stopped answering your calls, you think I’m some kind of terrorist?”